Come Together
by x.Radish.x
Summary: ON HIATUS: Experimentational fiction: may not go ahead. - What if Sokka and Katara never discovered the Avatar? Zutara. Eventually.
1. Katara: The Hunt

Disclaimer: I do not own Sokka, Zuko, Iroh, Kana, Aang, Ozai, Azulon or Katara. Nor did I create the Fire Nation, Air Nomads, Earth Kingdom or the Southern and Northern Water Tribes. These belong to Mike and Brian, Avatar God-s.

Hello readers. Would like comments on whether I should continue or not. Next chapter: Zuko - The Wanderers.

**One: Katara**

**The Hunt**

"Sokka, are you _sure_ that there's a herd out here?" Katara asks her brother for the tenth time. The quiver of arrows slung across her back has begun to feel heavier than it should and the muscles in her legs throb dully, promising cramping muscles for later tonight, when the cold really sets in.

Sokka whips his head around to glare at her. "Yes, okay?" he grunts exasperatedly at his younger sister. "I tracked them all yesterday."

Katara lifts a hand to her brow, shading her eyes against the dull summer sunshine. The plain ahead of them is flat and grassy, with the occasional fir tree spreading its needle-leaved branches out over the clear blue sky. There is no animal movement, not even a stale pile of dung that might suggest the past presence of the moose-bear herd. Katara rolls her eyes and shifts the bow on her shoulder so it no longer presses into her collarbone.

"I know you were out tracking, Sokka, but is this the place that you found them?" she demands, raising her eyebrows questioningly. She sees her brother's shoulders tense and imagines that he is glowering at the mountain range in the distance.

"What are you implying?" Sokka snaps. Katara shrugs.

"Oh, I don't know…maybe that you're leading us in the wrong direction?" she retorts, clenching her fists and walking faster so she can meet his stride. "Come on, it's not like it would be the first time."

"Last time doesn't count!" he insists, widening his eyes at her and waving his club over his head. "Those trees all looked the same!"

Katara sighs, reminding herself never to come hunting alone with her brother again. "Are you certain that this is the right place?" she enquires again, tiredly. He nods firmly.

"Positive," Sokka assures her. "The ground gets marshy just ahead, so you'll want to tighten the laces on your boots. I lost one of mine yesterday."

Katara kneels to pull the rawhide strings tighter on her calf-length moose-bear skin boots, grumbling. Letting Sokka get well ahead of her, she kilts up her ocean blue skirts and tucks her hunting dagger into her sash. "Marshy yet?" she yells. Sokka doesn't answer for a moment and then she hears a faint squelching. Her brother leaps about triumphantly, throwing his arms into the air in a comical display of his joy.

"I told you!" he crows as she jogs to catch up to him. "Look, Katara! Marshy!"

"I'm very impressed," she tells him dryly. "Quit jumping around. You'll fall on your face and I didn't bring anything to clean you up with."

He waves a nonchalant hand in her direction but obeys her instructions none the less. All of sudden his chest swells and his nostrils flare. "The herd's got to be close. I can smell 'em."

Katara goes to cock her eyebrow at him in question to this statement, but pauses halfway - what he's saying is right. The lukewarm breeze rustling the waist-high grass around them carries the thick, musky scent of moose-bear, and Katara is almost certain that she can smell the fermenting, digested grass that is the animals' dung. With the scent comes sound: a grunt stirring at the back of one of the great beasts' throats, the snap of heavy jaws being gnashed at youngsters who wander too close, a rattling growl ripping between furry, saliva-encrusted lips.

Sokka makes gestures for Katara to get down and she obeys; the tall grass towers over their heads as they crouch in the ankle-deep, stagnant marsh water.

"There," he whispers to her, pointing to the west. And all of a sudden, they're there - about twenty of them, including their young, ambling in an ungainly fashion over the muddy ground, huffing at one another and catching snatches of grass in their huge mouths as the walk. A single male lumbers in the centre of the group, its pointed horns wider than Sokka is tall, its snout lowered to the ground to snuffle about for root-plants. Katara's eyes widen when she feels the earth beneath her tremble with its every step.

"Sokka," she whispers anxiously but he silences her with a finger to his lips.

"It's okay," he assures her quietly, pulling his spear from his back. "We're not going to get him. See the old cow at the rear?"

Katara risks lifting her head slightly so she can squint at the oncoming animals: she spots the moose-bear Sokka is talking about. Its fur is raggedy and its huge eyes are milky with blindness. One of its mighty horns (though not nearly as big as the alpha male's) has been snapped off somehow or rather and instead her lice-ridden head sports a furry stump.

"I see her," Katara replies in a hasty whisper. "She's right at the back."

"That's her," Sokka nods. "We'll lie here until most of the herd pass us. Then, on my signal, I need you to shoot her before I take her down. Okay?"

Katara nods but she feels a little sick to her stomach. She's been hunting many a time before now, and is skilled when it comes to firing an arrow, but never before has she seen an alpha male so large. The sheer size of his bulk frightens her.

"Are you sure it's safe?" she whispers to her brother, her voice concerned. "If that bull charges us…"

"They don't charge, Katara," Sokka tells her in his I-Am-Sokka-The-All-Knowing tone. "They're like…glacial geese. Kill one and the rest scatter. It's in-stinct." He taps his forehead with a single finger.

The moose-bear are so close that Katara can smell the heavy, organic aroma of the animals' breath. Enormous furry hooves squelch in the stagnant water around them, and Katara catches glimpses of hairy hides as the creatures mosey lazily by, gnashing sharp canines and grinding wide molars.

Sokka begins to ease himself slowly forward, holding his spear poised above his shoulder. He makes a gesture for Katara to follow and she does, however reluctantly. She senses an elephantine presence pass by her with a waft of pungent musk-odour: she turns her head to see the hulking figure of the herd's bull striding languidly by, its pointed horns held high. Feeling her breath catch in her throat, she scuttles on past it, hardly daring to breathe.

Sokka pauses before her, raising a hand to signal her to stop. "Hold up."

Obediently, Katara pulls her bow from her shoulder and holds it in a position of readiness: she reaches back to pull an arrow from her quiver and slips the notch onto the thin rawhide string. Sokka peers through the grass, his eyes slitted with the effort of finding his target.

"She's fifteen metres that-a-way," he whispers to his sister, pointing in the direction of the animal. Katara does not need to strain her eyes to find the cow: she relies solely on his estimate.

"The rest of the animals have passed," her brother continues, still staring into the grass. "The cow's completely isolated."

Katara nods and makes motion for him to stop talking. Her eyes turn keenly in the direction of the oncoming elderly animal and she draws her bowstring back as far as it will go, her arm aching with the effort. She crouches, motionless, beside her brother, who squats tensely beside her.

"Easy," Katara whispers, more so to herself than to Sokka. She draws the bowstring back even further and settles herself into a more comfortable position, waiting for the telltale whisper of grass that suggests the distance between her and the cow: her eyes strain to find the animal.

With a final deep breath ('In…and out…' she whispers) Katara rockets upward, takes a thousandth of a second to pinpoint a target area at the creature's throat and lets her arrow fly.

It hits home; Katara hears a meaty thud as the arrow embeds itself deep in the moose-bear's throat. A great gush of blood shoots past the arrow's fletching, and Katara whoops.

"I got its artery!" she hollers. "Ten points!"

The moose-bear roars in agony, its lip peeling back from its sharp canines and its eyes rolling. It takes faltering steps toward the rest of the herd, bellowing sharply.

Sokka is on his feet is a flash, leaping through the grass to get a closer shot: a second later and his spear is deep in its throat and the animal falls to its knees; its mouth gapes but no sound is emitted. Sokka joins Katara in her victory dance.

"Water Tribe one," he crows, "Moose-bear none!"

Katara runs to meet him, standing before the dying animal, grinning. "Nice shot, brother," she congratulates him. The moose-bear snuffles piteously in disagreement and her milky eyes spin dizzily in her sockets. Sokka puffs out his chest.

"Well, you know how it is," he agrees, "I'm just great."

Katara falls to her knees and runs her hands up to the hollow of the creature's skull, knowing that it is too near-death to snap at her.

"Sorry, old girl," she murmurs, "But my tribe is hungry and you were close to dying anyway." Squeezing her eyes shut, she feels for the veins that feed the moose-bear's brain with blood and pushes, gently, with her Bending. She feels the veins squeeze closed and a moment later the animal is collapsed at her feet, its huge shaggy head lying peacefully on her knees.

"Yuck," Sokka groans, "You did that creepy Blood-bending thingy, didn't you?"

"It's not creepy," she snaps. Two moons ago, at the end of the last winter, a foreigner had arrived at the shores of their village, his long hair hanging in a tangle down his back and a narrow bone poked through the cartilage separating his nostrils. He had taught the Waterbenders in the tribe how to manipulate the blood of an animal in order to kill it faster and more successfully: it could be done at a distance, he assured the Benders, but only with years of practice.

"I have to do it if I want to learn in properly," Katara protests. "And it would help us hunt-"

"We do fine without it," he argues, glaring. "We just took that moose-bear down!"

Katara stiffens. "But it was suffering-"

"That's what they're meant to do when they die!"

"It's not nice!"

"But-"

"Sh, Sokka!" Katara hisses suddenly, her eyes going wide. "Be quiet!"

Sokka breaks of in mid-sentence, his arms raised high above his head in exasperation. He stares at her bemusedly. "But I was ranting."

"Your ranting is disturbing the moose-bear."

Katara points to the herd, who are not twenty metres away. The alpha male bellows in panic, eyes rolling, prancing with sudden grace through the quivering females. One of its black eyes lands on the brother and sister standing over one of its herd.

Katara can imagine the animalistic thoughts running through the creature's head - Dead, predator, threat…trample.

"RUN!" she hollers to her brother. "Sokka, they're going to stampede!"

As if cued, the bull raises his head to the sky and bellows angrily. A single cloved hoof paws the ground restlessly and the bull throws its head about, snorting furiously: and then all of a sudden the entire herd whirls around to stampede straight toward Sokka and Katara. Sokka throws his arms in the air and screams, running full pelt in the opposite direction.

"Come on, Katara! Move!" he yells over his shoulder and Katara obeys, tearing her wide eyes from the tonne of muscle thundering along the plain toward them.

"You said they don't charge!" she screams at her brother, her tone accusatory over the rumble of approaching hooves.

"They don't!" Sokka yells back, glancing over his shoulder, his arms pumping. "But they do stampede!"

"I am never, _ever_ hunting with you again, Sokka!" Katara snaps. "Never again!"

"You might not ever get to breathe again if you don't hurry up!" Sokka reminds her, and she spares a panicked glance behind her. The moose-bear are gaining, and fast: only twenty or so metres away, they show no signs of slowing. Mouths froth, eyes spin, nostrils flare: their hairy haunches are caked with foamy sweat.

"Can't you use your magic water or something?" Sokka pleads, his eyes wide and scared. "We can't out run them!"

"It's called Waterbending!" she corrects him stiffly. "And that's not going to stop them! It'll only panic them further!"

"But it might slow them down," he tells her. "It might be enough!"

"I can't run and Waterbend at the same time!" she protests. "And if we stop running-"

"Just DO IT!" Sokka commands furiously. "They're gaining!"

With a groan of frustration, Katara whirls around, her arms spread and her fingers splayed. The water beneath their feet moves on her command and she pinwheels her arms rapidly, sweat breaking out on her brow: a great wave rises up from the marsh and creates a thin, murky green wall between humans and moose-bear.

"They'll run through that!" Sokka barks, waving his arms in panic. "Make it frozen!"

Katara breathes in deeply through her nose and closes her eyes, focusing on the water before her. When she breathes out, the wall solidifies and Katara is amused to find that there are several twitching insects trapped inside. Sokka's arms wrap around her waist and he squeezes her happily.

"We're not gonna die!" he hollers gladly. "We're not gonna-"

The thin ice wall shatters as the herd, either undeterred by the wall or too panic-stricken to take any notice of it, breaks through, bellowing and biting and sweating. Before Katara even has time to draw breath, she's being pounded against the ground and sucking water into her lungs. Hooves land either side of her, the animals powering on in fright: all she can see is hair and water and grass.

"Sokka!" she cries, her voice sounding oddly strangled and choked. "Where-"

A heavy, mud-caked hoof clips her ankle and a second comes down on it and she hears the sickening snap of breaking bone. A sharp bolt of pain shoots up her left side and she screams, reaching back to clutch at it. "Oh, Yue-!"

A calf, not yet fully grown but tall enough to tower over Sokka, thunders toward her, braying for its mother. Katara's eyes widen and she goes to roll out of the way, but her broken ankle sends another jolt of pain to her brain and she cries out-

Then all she knows is mud and pain and confusion and the taste of blood in her mouth, before her vision fades to black.

-


	2. Zuko: The Wanderers

Disclaimer: I do not own Sokka, Zuko, Iroh, Kana, Aang, Ozai, Azulon or Katara. Nor did I create the Fire Nation, Air Nomads, Earth Kingdom or the Southern and Northern Water Tribes. These belong to Mike and Brian, Avatar God-s.

**Two: Zuko**

**The Wanderers **

Zuko trudges silently alongside his portly uncle Iroh, his head down and his shoulders slumped. His mouth is dry and his tongue feels swollen: who would have thought that here, in the Southern Pole, the coldest nation in the world, one could feel thirsty?

Iroh strokes his long beard, staring at the mountains in the distance. "I wonder where all the streams are."

Zuko turns his head on the slightest so that he may shoot his uncle a quizzical glance. "What?"

"The streams. It's summer here, so you'd expect to find some ice-melt streams around here or something," Iroh replies, his eyes sweeping across the plain. "Or at least a marsh."

"Those mountaintops are still covered with snow," Zuko muses, following his uncle's gaze. Iroh nods.

"Yes, but this entire country was covered with heavy snowfall. You'd expect that when it melted…" Iroh breaks off, frowning. "I just want a drink."

"Join the club," Zuko grumbles, working his tongue in attempt to gather saliva in his mouth. "I don't think I've ever been this thirsty."

"At least we still have some food," Iroh reminds his nephew cheerily - always the optimist. Zuko glares at him.

"Tea leaves are not food. Neither are those clams you found in the last water hole," he snaps. Iroh shrugs.

"If you can swallow them and not have them come back up, then they are food," he chides gently. Zuko doesn't reply.

Iroh shifts the pack he is carrying higher on his broad shoulders. "We'll need to hunt."

Zuko rolls his eyes. "_I'll_ need to hunt, you mean."

Iroh chuckles and his belly jiggles. "Yes, and I'll stay back at camp and make us tea!"

His nephew grunts.

They walk in silence, focusing on the snow-coated mountaintops to take their minds of the hot sun on their backs and thirst clawing at their throats. The dry brown grass rustles in the warm breeze sweeping over the plain and fluffy white clouds race over the pale blue sky. Dust puffs up with Zuko's every step.

"This isn't a country," Zuko growls, "It's a _wasteland_."

"It's quite beautiful in the winter time," Iroh protests. "All the snow and ice is…enchanting."

"… And people actually live here?" his nephew continues, his eyes wide with disbelief, ignoring Iroh's attempt at defending the 'wasteland'. "It's unbelievable."

"The Southern Water Tribe are a very small people. Their cities fell a hundred years ago, at the very beginning of the Great War. They-"

"I know that, Uncle," Zuko informs him curtly. "I studied a lot before I was banished."

"Of course, I should have-" Iroh breaks off when he hears a squelching sound from beneath his worn boots. "What…?"

"Mud!" Zuko exclaims, his eyes going wide with hope. "Mud means…"

"_Water_!" Iroh cries, racing ahead of his nephew, unscrewing the top of his canteen. "Agni bless us! Water!"

Zuko can't help but let a small smile crawl over his lips. "Finally."

"It gets even muddier here, Zuko, so watch your step-" his uncle is silent for a few moments. "Oh my."

"What?" Zuko feels alarmed at the disappointment in his uncle's voice. "Is it dried up? But this mud is-"

"There's plenty of water," Iroh assures his nephew, and Zuko feels the hope bubble up in his belly for the second time today. "But it's…ugh."

"What do you mean?" Zuko asks, jogging to catch up to his uncle. He slips and struggles to regain his composure. "I don't care what it looks like, if it's water then I want it!"

"You don't want this water," Iroh says firmly and Zuko reaches him and peers over his shoulder.

"Agni."

The ankle-depth water has sat stagnant for weeks, maybe months, and gives off the sweet, salty smell of rot and decay. Small, biting insects buzz sedately through the marsh and a cricket chirrups from its hiding place amongst the dying grass. Zuko catches a glimpse of a frog's slimy skin before it leaps to safety in the green water.

"Like I said…you don't want it," Iroh repeats and Zuko sends him a sizzling glare.

"Come on," he snarls. "There's got to be fresh water around here somewhere."

He ignores the water's dirty warmth when it seeps through the holes in his boots: he goes on tramping angrily through the marsh, muttering incoherently to himself. Iroh follows on dejectedly, no doubt mourning his midday cup of ginseng.

"Stupid country," Zuko gripes, pulling his pearl dagger from its holster and slashing at the grass with it. "Stupid heat, stupid empty canteen, stupid bugs - STOP BITING ME - stupid water, stupid-"

He breaks off with a cry of disgust, back-pedalling so fast that he bumps into Iroh, who grunts in surprise.

"Zuko, what are you doing?"

"There's…a hand," Zuko chokes out, telling his stomach to stop trying to sick up his breakfast of the moss he spent so long scraping off all those rocks. "In the grass."

"What?" Iroh questions, peering past his nephew's shoulder. His eyes bugle. "Agni, it is too."

The hand is dark-skinned and calloused - the fingers (several of them broken - the bone of the middle fingers juts out through the skin) are curled over a long spear. Blood and mud are spattered over both the weapon and the disembodied appendage.

"Is there anyone attached?" Iroh asks, edging closer. "Zuko, go look."

"I don't want to!" his nephew protests. "Uncle, that's a body!"

"Well, so far only a hand. But go look and see if there's a body, too."

Swallowing rapidly and telling himself firmly to stop being such a girl, Zuko treads softly closer to the hand, half-convinced that it might reach up and grab him.

"Is it a body?"

Zuko ignores his uncle's question. Attached to the hand is a long, muscular arm, dislocated from the bare shoulder that belongs to the dark-skinned young man lying unconscious before him.

"Uncle! He's breathing!"

Zuko crouches to feel for the young man's (surely he's not older than seventeen) pulse: it beats steadily, if not too fast, beneath the bloodied skin on his wrist. Deep purple bruises blossom at random over the young man's bare torso and legs: Zuko can see a puffy area on the young man's chest that might mean broken ribs. The lungs beneath the ribcage are working fine, though, so Zuko is almost certain that the bones have not penetrated the respiratory organ.

Iroh crouches stiffly beside him, reaching out with a wrinkled hand to wipe a smear of blood from the young man's brow. "He's a native."

"What happened to him?" Zuko asks, frowning.

"I think he must have been hunting moose-bear," Iroh muses thoughtfully. "See these hoof prints? And these tufts of hair on the grass? It looks like he got caught in a stampede."

Zuko nods and touches a thin stream of blood that has trickled from the native's mouth. "It can't have happened too long ago. His blood isn't completely dried." His gaze sweeps over the plain. "I don't see any animals."

"They are surprisingly speedy for their size. They may well have reached the edge of the plain and disappeared into the mountains."

"Why would he hunt such a big animal alone?" Zuko enquires confusedly, shaking his head. "Undeveloped mind-state?"

Iroh laughs heartily, despite the situation. "No, Zuko. The Southern Water Tribe are every bit as intelligent as us…if a little primitive. I thought you'd studied them? Don't glare at me like that, Zuko. I'd say he wasn't alone. Scout around. See if you can find anyone else. I'll try to bring this boy around."

Zuko nods and sets off through the marsh, his eyes peeled for a flash of skin or clothing. The native boy found had been donned in loose blue cotton pants.

When he sees clotted blood on the dead grass, he calls out to his uncle and falls to his knees, scouting for any sign of human life. He spies a tangle of dark hair caught up in a clump of reeds and reaches out to touch it. The scalp beneath is tacky with blood.

"Uncle, there's another one!"

He crawls around the clump of reeds and his eyes fall on the crushed body of a young woman, as dark as her companion. Her small face is turned away from him, the eyes closed and thick lashes brushing her bloodied cheek.

Zuko cannot see the full extent of her injuries like he could on her companion, because she wears a mud-spattered dress of fur and blue cotton. A battered quiver of arrows and a bow that has snapped in half lie not far from where she lies.

Zuko feels for her pulse and finds it, beating too fast in her thin wrist. Her breath comes in shallow gasps, but she's alive.

"It's a girl!"

"A girl?" Iroh's voice is closer than Zuko expected and he sees his uncle pushing through the grass. "Let me see her."

"She's worse than the boy."

Iroh brushes her hair off her motionless face and frowns. "Her breathing is too shallow. One of her lungs must have been punctured." He glances up at his nephew. "She's smaller than the boy. I can carry her. You take the other one."

"What are we going to do with them?"

"Take them to their home."

"How are we going to find their home? This place is huge!" Zuko protests, but deep down he knows it's the right thing to do. Iroh shrugs.

"Hopefully one of them will regain consciousness."

"They might both die."

"I think the boy has a good chance of living. But the young lady…" he trails off and his eyes linger on her face. He reaches down to turn her over. "She is in a very bad way." Zuko sucks in breath between clenched teeth when the other side of her face is revealed. The girl must have been pretty before the accident, if not beautiful, but now one side of her face is crushed into a mess of hair and gore from her cheekbone to her hairline. The skull beneath feels spongy and broken when Zuko reaches down to touch her skin. "She could die very soon, Zuko."

"Uncle, if we move her-"

"If we don't, she dies anyway," Iroh tells him with no sympathy. "Get the boy. We need to leave now. If her tribe hosts any healers, then she might have a chance."

Zuko turns and jogs back to find the native boy, doing his best not to slip and fall: whilst agile on solid ground, he has a difficult time staying upright in the mud.

The boy lies where they left him, but his arm is relocated and his mangled hand bandaged, along with his swollen chest: Iroh has attempted to wash the most of the blood off him with the filthy water that he lies in.

Zuko bends to pull on the arm that was not dislocated, hoisting the boy over his shoulder like he would a sack of potatoes. The unconscious native lies there, a dead weight, and Zuko grunts. "Agni, he's heavy."

Just then his grunt is answered with a groan and Zuko almost drops the boy in his fright. Instead he places him gently back on the ground, lying the boy's head on his knee. The native stirs, his eyes opening and squinting against the sun's glare.

"Katara?" he whispers. Zuko frowns and shakes his head.

"No, my name is-"

"Katara!" yells the boy. His voice cracks and he clears his throat, struggling to hoist himself away from Zuko's grasp. He wails in agony and clutches at his broken ribs.

"Hold still," Zuko commands. "You're hurt."

The boy's eyes turn to him and they are deep, deep blue. He narrows them confusedly. "Who are you?"

"My name is Zuko. My uncle is with your friend."

"Katara's alive?" the boy asks and his eyes light up. "I thought-"

"She might die," Zuko says brutally. "We need to get you to back to your tribe so she can get medical attention. Can you stay conscious long enough to give me directions?"

"Sure. Walk straight ahead for one hundred steps, turn left at the first pine tree and then walk left for three steps, then right for five…" he chuckles and then winces. "Owie."

Zuko does not laugh. "Let me help you up. I need to help me get your friend - Katara - home."

The boy's face becomes serious. "Okay. Grab my arm." He offers the one that was dislocated, whimpers, appears to consider, then offers Zuko the other arm. "That one, actually."

Zuko hoists the boy to his feet and the native sags limply against him. "Yue, I hurt all over."

"Uncle!" Zuko calls. "He's conscious! Let's go!"

Iroh's shaggy head pops up some ten metres away and in his arms he carries the limp, bloody form of the boy's companion. Her head lolls against Iroh's shoulder and one of her arms hangs around his neck. "She stopped breathing for a few moments," he calls back to his nephew. "She had me worried." His narrow amber eyes fall on the native boy. "Hello there, young man. My name is Iroh."

"Sokka," the boy says distractedly. "Is that my sister? She's all covered in blood." His voice quivers. Zuko thinks that he sounds as though he is teetering on the edge of hysteria.

"Yeah," Zuko breathes. "She might still be okay." Something like sadness bubbles up to form a lump in his throat, like a lump of meat that might threaten to choke him. He swallows savagely, pushing the feeling away.

There's no reason to get attached to these people - especially the girl. She's pretty, and she's dying, but she's a stranger.

"If she was awake she might be able to heal herself," Sokka tells Zuko, biting his lip. Zuko raises his eyebrows in surprise. "She's a Waterbender?"

"That's what she calls it," Sokka nods but his eyes are far away: Zuko wonders if he realises that there are tears coursing down his dark cheeks. "A Master. Our grandfather taught her when he migrated here a few years back."

"Let's get her home," Zuko offers, making an attempt at sounding soothing. He is not sure that he has succeeded, but his suggestion has Sokka's attention. The boy nods firmly, appearing to regain some sort of control over himself.

"Yeah. That way." He points toward the mountains crouching on the edge of the plain with the hand left unbroken.

Without another word, all three begin to trek slowly and painfully through the marsh toward a snowy pass in the mountains, Zuko supporting an unconsciously weeping and dazed Sokka and Iroh carrying little Katara, all limp and broken, in his strong arms.

-


End file.
